Ancient Aliens S06E08 “Mysterious Relics” continues the show’s decent into religious mystery-mongering, opening with the Shroud of Turin in its rundown of upcoming material. After the credits, we start with the 2013 U.S. Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House, which the show traces back to Roman medals of bravery from the second century BCE. The show wants to know why “metal” is so important for decoration and adornment. The ghost of Philip Coppens relates this to Judaism’s metal breastplates for the priests, and the narrators simply tells us that gold, silver, and platinum connect people to the “divine, or some might say extraterrestrial” powers. Obviously, the show no longer sees a meaningful difference between the two. Ancient Aliens is rapidly becoming a sort of Unitarian Universalist Hour of Power.

Alan Butler is on today—so he’s an ancient astronaut theorist now? I guess that explains his stupid moon theory. Next we look at a Bronze Age gold cone-shaped hat with astronomical symbols, which survives in our culture today as the conical hats worn by wizards. The hat records the positions of the sun and moon over time, and the show considers this evidence of alien intervention, with Andrew Collins suggesting the knowledge came from another dimension during trances. Mike Bara concurs and explains that ancient people wore giant gold hats to receive energy beams channeled from the aliens in space directly into their brains. Philip Coppens and David Childress agree, with Childress suggesting that the aliens wore large conical hats themselves. I thought they wore space helmets. Oh, well, what do I know? After this: Dead Sea Scrolls! We look at the Copper Scroll, an unusual scroll made of copper (with a bit of tin) that records locations where gold and silver treasures were buried. We get some conspiracy theories about secret codes in the scroll, with no evidence, and Giorgio Tsoukalos tells us that there may be a missing piece that will help us understand it. But that ends that… Even this show can’t pretend aliens wrote it because it’s so poorly written, almost illiterate. (Mainstream scholars think a semi-literate or illiterate artisan copied the characters onto the scroll.) Following this, we look at Bulgarian bones unearthed in 2012 and carbon dated to the first century CE, which believers now claim belonged to John the Baptist. This discussion goes nowhere as various talking heads talked about how people like to venerate ancestral bones. This has nothing to do with aliens. This leads to legends about the tooth of the Buddha which survived his cremation. (There are actually seven teeth that all claim to be Buddha’s one tooth.) The show wonders if bones can connect believers to the afterlife and the gods, which more or less just accepts religious claims at face value, though Andrew Collins allows that this is “psychological” rather than physical. Childress stresses the importance of owning “divine” DNA, and Erich von Däniken suggests that the aliens told early humans to preserve their bodies so the aliens could return and clone them. (He suggests that the preserved people were their “darlings,” which gets into his horny-alien hypothesis, derived as everything in this stupid theory is, from Genesis 6:4). Now we are on the Shroud of Turin, and the show tries to grapple with questions over the shroud’s authenticity, but only to the extent that they can establish doubt over how the image was made in order to open the window to a miracle, asserting that today we cannot duplicate such an image with all our technology. William Henry falsely claims that Italian scientists “proved” in 2011 that the Shroud was formed by an “unearthly” or “supernatural flash of light,” which is false on its surface since the supernatural is, by definition, beyond the purview of science; the scientists actually claimed the image was the work of “a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation,” which is not supernatural, or visible light. Henry says Jesus transformed into pure light and projected himself through the Shroud. Next we look at the Blarney Stone, which folklore claims provided rhetorical gifts. David Wilcock tries to explain this, and his tangled syntax shows he clearly has not kissed the stone. The show takes this very seriously and asks whether stones really can impact our power of speech. Wilcock asserts that it’s “obvious” that Irish gods and goddesses were not “humans” so therefore they are aliens (a false dichotomy), and that they in turn “impregnated” rhetorical competence into the Blarney Stone through unknown “energy” technology which could be transmitted orally by placing one’s mouth on the stone. After this, we look at the Stone of Destiny, the Lia Fáil, in Ireland, atop the Hill of Tara, where the Irish kings were crowned. Because Tara was associated with the gods, who had magical powers, this must therefore be an alien landing strip. Childress suggests that the aliens were “arriving in UFOs,” thus causing three days of darkness at Tara. This actually is a bit of a jolt since it is the only time the show breaks from religion and spirituality to go old school with aliens. Wilcock calls the stone—which is rock, I remind you—a piece of technology that could see through time to predict the future. After the break, we’re on to meteors and the glass created in the Libyan Desert by a meteor impact. This is funny because Childress, long ago, asserted that this glass was the result of nuclear war between Lemuria and the land of Osiris in the days of the Rama Empire! (Those last two are Lemurian Fellowship creations that he used to believe in.) We discuss various meteor pieces used in ancient art, and references to meteors in Prometheus Bound and the Aeneid. Tsoukalos can’t manage to think of a reason these are actually alien and instead suggests that they were seen as symbolically alien for coming from space, which says nothing at all since here gods and aliens become again synonymous. Moving from this, the show asserts that the Holy Grail (which they identify as Jesus’ cup at the last supper) was made of green meteoric glass from the Czech Republic called moldavite. This is a bit of a confusing claim, and I think it derives from the Chalice of Genoa, which was found during the Crusades at Caesaria Maritimia and believed to be made of emerald. Heralded in the early modern period as the Holy Grail, it fell into discredit when it broke during the Napoleonic Wars and was revealed to be green glass. We hear that “legend” ascribes to the Grail the property of being a green stone fallen from Lucifer’s crown during the rebellion of the angels, and this is from Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (c. 1205 CE), well, sort of. Wolfram’s stone grail, described in Book 9 of Parzival, was in marked contrast to the earliest Grail, that of Chretien de Troyes, which was a gold dish, but so far as I can find in reading about a dozen translations of his description, it isn’t green. (Even Joe Nickell got this wrong.) Wolfram, unbeknownst to ancient astronaut theorists, specifically wrote that a pagan-Islamic astronomer (it was the Middle Ages; they didn’t know better), writing in Arabic, learned about the Grail “from the stars” and that beings from space (angels) brought the stone down from the stars with them. You’d think if Ancient Aliens bothered to read the original sources they’d have found evidence that supports their theory rather than undermine it by trying to make the grail into green Czech glass. So how do we get to Lucifer’s emerald? Good question. Wolfram described the grail and then, immediately thereafter, said that “They who took no part in the conflict, when Lucifer would fight with Three-in-One, those angels were cast forth from Heaven’s height. To the earth they came, at God’s bidding, and that wondrous stone did tend” (trans. Jesse L. Weston). From this, some speculators read Hermes Trismegistus for the Three-in-One, and associated Hermes with the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, from Arabian lore. Of course, the actual meaning of the lines is that the neutral angels tended the Grail while Lucifer battled God, the Trinity. It’s possible, given the attribution of the Grail myth to Arabic texts, that Wolfram had in mind the alleged alchemical power of the Emerald Tablet, also from Arabic texts, when describing the Holy Grail as essentially the Philosopher’s Stone. This, in turn, ties in with a legendary set of songs supposedly composed by bards which included Wolfram, called the Wartburgkrieg, composed at least fifty years later. In the surviving accounts, one of the poems told how Lucifer’s crown had a stone that fell to earth thanks to St. Michael: “Sixty thousand angels who wished to drive God from heaven had a crown made for Lucifer. When the archangel Michael tore this from Lucifer’s head, a stone sprang loose from it, and that stone is the Grail” (trans. William Ashton Ellis). This, in its turn, derived from the medieval myth that Venus, the Morning Star, was the jewel from Lucifer’s crown. Many writers fail to distinguish between this poem and Parzival, and some fringe writers attribute these lines to Parzival. In neither source, however, is the stone green, at least not in any English translation I’ve read. Perhaps the medieval German mentions it, but it doesn’t seem likely. The closest I can find seems to be the part where Wolfram says the Grail is carried on “achmardi,” his word for green brocaded silk. The green color in modern descriptions would seem to come with conflation of this with the Emerald Tablet and the emerald chalice of Genoa, which was proclaimed the Holy Grail around 1100 CE. In truth, however, the answer is still more prosaic, and sad. In 1832, “San Marte” (Albert Schulz) produced a loose paraphrase of Wolfram in which he interpolated the Wartburgkrieg text without indicating the distinction. He falsely makes Wolfram say:

The holy Grail is a stone of the most wondrous and mysterious kind. A number of angels having remained neutral and inactive during the battle of Lucifer and the rebel angels against God and the faithful heavenly hosts, after Lucifer’s fall they were condemned by God to support this stone, which had dropped from Lucifer’s crown, hovering between Heaven and Earth till the hour of redemption of sinful mankind. Then they brought it to Earth, and, formed into a costly vessel, it served for the dish out of which Christ ate the Pascal lamb, and in which Joseph of Arimathea received the Saviour’s blood. (trans. William Ashton Ellis)

Wolfram’s version stops at “support this stone.” Everything after is Schulz’s text. Victorian authors repeated this rather than bother to read the original (which, being medieval German they could not), and thus Wolfram became retroactively the originator of the claim of Lucifer’s crown. Modern people know the story because of glosses and notes on Wagner, using these Victorian sources, interpolated into editions of Parsifal. Again, even today, nobody checks the original source. From this Robert Simmons, in The Book of Stones (2005/2007), apparently was the first to decide that the emerald grail was Czech moldavite, and he asserts that using moldavite can help us to “realign” our heart to God, activate the Grail in our hearts, and induce global “Christ consiousness.” You can see how much I liked this episode since I spent most of my time on the only topic I found interesting. In fact, I found a fascinating discussion of the Lucifer stone that I have posted in my Library. Back to the show… Another stone is discussed, and it’s more of the same. Then we’re on to the Kaaba in Mecca, whose cornerstone is believed to be a meteorite. David Childress then libels Islam by claiming Muslims “worship” the “extraterrestrial stone,” which misunderstands the concept of veneration, and he comes dangerously close in his phrasing to asserting that the stone was itself a god equal to Allah. He states that Muhammad retained the stone for Islam (having previously been part of pagan faith) in “memory of some extraterrestrial event.” The narrator suggests that the stone had the power to teleport believers to other dimensions. This leads, after the break, to a discussion of the magic power of the True Cross of Christ, described as the “most powerful” relic on earth. The show accepts at face value that St. Helena discovered the True Cross in Jerusalem. Childress finds it “fascinating” that the True Cross contains “divine” energy via “extraterrestrial power” we don’t understand, technological artifacts capable of great healing. At least he’s consistent in claiming religious believers of each stripe worship alien medical devices as gods. The show stops short of calling Jesus an alien. In the end, though, the show isn’t quite able to decide whether relics are actual alien artifacts and chunks of aliens carrying magic DNA, or whether they were simply “strangely connected” to them through human belief in their symbolic relationship to the aliens and/or gods. The final words from the narrator assert that the “saints and martyrs”—his words—will “rise again” when we clone them via their preserved DNA, as though a clone were a resurrection of the original individual and not merely a new person sharing the same DNA, no more alike than a twin sibling.So, again, all religion, almost no aliens.

Ahh, the Blarney Stone...classic Irish humor. You're literally bending over backwards to put your lips on a rock, and your reward? I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with "herpes labialis."

Nothing extraterrestrial about it.

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The Other J.

11/16/2013 08:13:39 am

If you get in good with the locals, they'll tell you to avoid kissing the stone because other locals piss on it. But that may be as apocryphal as kissing the stone bestowing the gift of the gab.

Which, as it happens, really didn't become a thing until the 19th century, although the origin of the story is unknown. Erich Von Daniken has probably talked to relatives who were alive when the tradition first began.

But if it's only a 200-some year-old ancient tradition, the aliens certainly took their time getting to the Emerald Isle. They didn't know what they were missing. Silly aliens.

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The Other J.

11/16/2013 08:04:06 am

"Mike Bara concurs and explains that ancient people wore giant gold hats to receive energy beams channeled from the aliens in space directly into their brains."

Clearly aluminum or tin will disrupt the holy message and make you a crazy paranoid nutbag, while gold or silver will align you to mystical space powers because, of course, aliens eat gold (but also wear it as hats and use it to fix their radon atmosphere?).

Dave Lewis

11/16/2013 11:25:33 am

So let's see gold hats attract good alien radio signals and tin hats shield us from bad alien radio signals.

Dave Lewis

Only Me

11/16/2013 11:17:46 am

*a Bronze Age gold cone-shaped hat with astronomical symbols, which survives in our culture today as the conical hats worn by wizards*

I bet Mickey Mouse and Gandalf would be surprised to know that!

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Salverda

11/16/2013 12:54:48 pm

"The hat records the positions of the sun and moon over time, and the show considers this evidence of alien intervention, with Andrew Collins suggesting the knowledge came from another dimension during trances."

Presumably aliens from another planet would have their own astronomy (having different stars in their sky, with a different moon, or not, or two?) their months would not be the same length, nor their year. So why would they be experts at, or even care about, our Astronomy?

Which brings up our earth based system of mathematics. If space aliens from some other planet helped us to develop geometry and such, for the building of the ancient monuments (once again aligning them with our own sky), then why is our math based upon our solar year with 360 degrees in the circle? Did they re-develop their own math system into Euclidean geometry (from an earthly point of view) to make it look like we thought it up on our own?

The concept of ancient aliens is so easily debunked, why even bother? I must admit, it is fun though.

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william smith

11/17/2013 03:52:53 am

I was not aware that the 3 gold cone hats had any thing to do with the sun. My research some years ago indicated the hats were recordings of the moon in its 18.6 year cycle. The logic behind the 360 degree circle is because it takes close to 360 days for the moon to complete 12 lunar months when you round off 29.6 days/month to 30 x 12 = 360. Keep in mind that most people before 50 BC kept time in lunar months and talked in moons rather than years. When the new world was discovered they found that the people still used the lunar calendar and talked in moons. Even Stone hinge has 30 windows for tracking the moon. This technology is not from out of this world, but by the ancient earth people tracking and recording movement of the sun and moon. They did not have TV to get this info from the Alien site.

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Salverda

11/17/2013 05:51:23 am

You may be interested to read an exact quote from an ancient Mesopotamian text, see if you can understand how they could be off by 5 days in their reckoning of the days of the year; "12 are the months of the year; 360 are its days. Take the length of the new year in your hand and continuously seek out the times of the disappearance (of the Moon), the expected heliacal risings of the stars, the conjunction of the new year with "the field," the sightings of the Moon and sun in Adar and Elul, the risings and first appearances of the Moon which a seen monthly. Serve the correspondences' of the Pleiades and the Moon and let it provide you with the answer. Seek out the months of the year, the days of the month. Be exact and everything you do." (A. Oppenheim, JNES 33 200:57-63) Take note of this last sentence, "Be exact in everything you do" and remember 29.6 times 12 is 355, which makes the modern lunar year 5 days short of 360. This is off by the same number of days that the modern year of 365 days is off by. Do you honestly believe that they "rounded off" the number of days in a month to come up with the five day annual error? Couldn't they count to 355, or 365, in the course of one year, and see that they were wildly wrong in their rounded off estimate? Either the 12th Moon would come 5 days too early, or the Sun would come up 5 days short, these people were obviously not fools! Is it absolutely impossible that the Lunar period and/or the length of the year have changed since then? Well, at least we can agree that Martians or some other type of aliens didn't come up with the method of mathematics whereby there are 360 degrees in a circle.

william smith

11/17/2013 09:23:26 am

The ancients were studying the sky's long before the ancient Mesopotamiam text. Many calendars have been developed over time. The one we use today is an off shoot of the Julian calendar. Some had a 13th month which was a short month and varied in numbers of days. For the most part March 21st. or the day of the equinox was used as the start of a new year. Many ancient people in Europe as well as Americas had a period during the year where they adjusted their day count so it would start a new year on the spring equinox. A year has 365.25 days (we adjust by using leap year), The lunar year is 355 days, however most cultures used 360 because the number 30 was closer than 29 to getting the moon in cycle with the sun in the day count. The technology used in ancient times to determine the first day of the year was to make a circle of stones with an observation stone in the center of the circle. Each day at sun rise and sun set, additional stones on the outside of the circle were moved to mark the daily position. On the longest day of the year (summer solstice) the outer stone sun rise and sun set marker stones would have reached their highest position. On the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) the outer stones would mark the lowest position. By making the stone circle 360 degrees the observer could use the same stones to count the days in the month by observing the position of the moon at mid day as it moved 12.5 degrees counterclockwise each day. Their are many examples of this which are on both continents. Their are 64 registered stone calendar circles in America alone with most in Canada. The Medicine wheel is one in the USA. In Europe their are many with Stonehenge being the most published. If you look at the Nebra Disc found in Germany you can see it is a sun and moon calendar. We can play with numbers all we want, however we still are required to adjust our clocks for the imbalance of the cycles of the earth, sun and moon. Even our atomic clocks.

KiwiSara

3/12/2016 09:01:56 pm

I like the ep my take on the gold hats is druids or such with advanced scrying abilities crossed the value into the open void of celestial information which they were able to interpret and recorded it on these hats to further align themselves with these inate abilities as it's known when scrying you would wear a hat and most likely crystal pendant so if you fashion something for this purpose that will be a catalyst when you delve into this further it makes sense to do so. My father would wear a pyramid on his head for hours on end after he returned home from work he was carpenter by trade as a child I only knew he believed it somehow lifted his personal energy for what purpose I have no idea as he has passed on I cannot ask him further re this.

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charlie

11/16/2013 02:53:57 pm

Jason, glad to know I am not alone when I said the AA bit was beginning to sound like a religion. The entire series is becoming nearly unwatchable now. It was a bit fun, in a sort of "what if" way at first, now it is just a waste of time. Nothing new, but how many times can they recycle old myths any way? Funny how Mr. Childress changes his beliefs more often than some change their socks. Which way is the wind blowing today? Ah yes, I smell profits in that direction.
If I am being too harsh, sorry, but the whole "ancient aliens" show is getting a bit long in the tooth.

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diggity

11/16/2013 06:07:01 pm

It would be interesting to know if the producers are still paying Coppens' estate appearance/royalty fees. Or if his payment was just based on a couple of interviews, so they are just reusing his material free of charge.

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Albus W.

11/16/2013 08:37:36 pm

Maybe the Cup of Fire, describe in Harry Potter's was also an alien artifact because in the book it's described as having strange god-like power, spitting all sort of flames and others magical powers... maybe it was even a spaceship and Dumbledore was an alien !!! And Harry Potter is also said to have had strange magical powers, he could render himself invisible, he could levitate objects, he could fly on his so called "broom stick." So is it possible that Harry Potter was an alien and what J.K. Rowling describes as a "broom" was in fact a spaceship? what do you think Jason?

It's as if Andy Kaufman really did fake his death and the whole AAT movement is one of his pranks.

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Skip Alidon

11/18/2013 04:21:24 am

I really enjoyed your review. I watched most of the Ancient Alien episodes, and was thoroughly amused by the whole thing. It was all fantasy, of course, and ranked the specials accordingly. I suppose even the History Channel has a sense of humor. Who would take any of this stuff seriously?

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KiwiSara

3/12/2016 09:06:43 pm

Most likely be taken seriously by those who take illuminati seriously

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Shawn

11/18/2013 02:14:20 pm

Come'on dude, how can you argue with Giorgio Tsoukalos hair?? That is how he picks up all these secret alien historical facts through his special hair antenna!

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william smith

11/18/2013 11:57:00 pm

I think Giorgio looks like the ugly duckling because of his comments on creation. He does not know who came first the chicken or the egg. Did God create the Alien before man?

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KiwiSara

3/12/2016 09:09:39 pm

The hair is prepared with negative ionic brush which gives shine volume and straightness in just one pass this assures he is receiving pure earth energy charge and explains why he is relaxed yet excited at any one moment.

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Charles

11/20/2013 08:31:30 am

Nice review. Seems like there is enough material here to massage out an episode of The Big Bang Theory, wherein Sheldon and the crew watch an episode of Ancient Aliens while eating Chinese food while lampooning AA for its total lack of intelligence.

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Brian F

12/6/2013 09:58:55 am

I too hope for that day. I just want to see the guys (especially Sheldon) just completely snap when they meet someone who believes in the AAT crap; just as long as none of the main members don't believe in it.

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Ronald Stepp

12/6/2013 10:51:31 am

The downside to living in the age we do is that you can't ask Christians to prove God exists anymore. It doesn't matter what they come up with, hell, even if God appeared personally there is nothing he could do to prove he is a supernatural deity as opposed to a super-advanced alien.

Anything God could have done when we were ignorant of science that appeared as something only a deity could do can now be explained as technology. Even if it isn't technology we could prove works that way, WE CAN CONCEIVE OF TECHNOLOGY ADVANCED ENOUGH TO DUPLICATE ANYTHING A GOD COULD DO.

So we have reached a point where Christians are incapable of proving it is a God and not an alien astronaut.

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Only Me

12/7/2013 12:58:43 pm

But why should it fall to Christians or for that matter, Muslims and Jews, to prove God isn't a super-advanced alien?

I take the Bible's description of God as it says. This definition has become universal, in how most people would describe any figure as a god. For another to claim that God is an alien, it now falls to that individual to provide proof. I didn't make the claim, so there's nothing for me to prove.

The reverse would be true, if God were accepted as being an alien, and I came along and said, "No, He is divine." That's how making a claim works.

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Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 01:16:00 pm

Because it is the Christians or the Muslims or the Jews making the claim that their God is a divine being who created us and that we have to accept them as our savior. They in fact make laws that restrict what we can do in the name of their religions.

I'm just saying it is probably impossible for them to meet the burden since technology has really eliminated the need for the supernatural to power such a being. But it IS still their burden. And it is also, until I see evidence to the contrary, probably impossible to prove a being exists when in all likelihood it does not.

If the religious weren't indoctrinating their children, who are themselves too young to make an informed decision, or were not trying to kill those who didn't believe in their God, or didn't pass laws requiring me to live in accordance with their Religious rules, it wouldn't matter to me. But since they do, it does.

Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 01:16:05 pm

Because it is the Christians or the Muslims or the Jews making the claim that their God is a divine being who created us and that we have to accept them as our savior. They in fact make laws that restrict what we can do in the name of their religions.

I'm just saying it is probably impossible for them to meet the burden since technology has really eliminated the need for the supernatural to power such a being. But it IS still their burden. And it is also, until I see evidence to the contrary, probably impossible to prove a being exists when in all likelihood it does not.

If the religious weren't indoctrinating their children, who are themselves too young to make an informed decision, or were not trying to kill those who didn't believe in their God, or didn't pass laws requiring me to live in accordance with their Religious rules, it wouldn't matter to me. But since they do, it does.

Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 01:16:15 pm

Because it is the Christians or the Muslims or the Jews making the claim that their God is a divine being who created us and that we have to accept them as our savior. They in fact make laws that restrict what we can do in the name of their religions.

I'm just saying it is probably impossible for them to meet the burden since technology has really eliminated the need for the supernatural to power such a being. But it IS still their burden. And it is also, until I see evidence to the contrary, probably impossible to prove a being exists when in all likelihood it does not.

If the religious weren't indoctrinating their children, who are themselves too young to make an informed decision, or were not trying to kill those who didn't believe in their God, or didn't pass laws requiring me to live in accordance with their Religious rules, it wouldn't matter to me. But since they do, it does.

Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 01:16:25 pm

Because it is the Christians or the Muslims or the Jews making the claim that their God is a divine being who created us and that we have to accept them as our savior. They in fact make laws that restrict what we can do in the name of their religions.

I'm just saying it is probably impossible for them to meet the burden since technology has really eliminated the need for the supernatural to power such a being. But it IS still their burden. And it is also, until I see evidence to the contrary, probably impossible to prove a being exists when in all likelihood it does not.

If the religious weren't indoctrinating their children, who are themselves too young to make an informed decision, or were not trying to kill those who didn't believe in their God, or didn't pass laws requiring me to live in accordance with their Religious rules, it wouldn't matter to me. But since they do, it does.

KiwiSara

3/12/2016 09:12:13 pm

Is not Domino a modern day Jesus?

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Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 01:17:46 pm

Sorry for the duplicates, the site kept saying there was a problem and to try again. After I reloaded it I saw it was full of shit.

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Only Me

12/7/2013 03:20:16 pm

You're addressing two separate claims. You acknowledge that the big three religions claim God is divine. Then you say that they, and God Himself, are incapable of proving God isn't an alien. But it isn't the religions' burden to prove, as they never claimed He was.

Again, whether someone believes in the existence of God or not, if someone insists that God was an alien, it falls to that person to prove it. It's the same as someone accusing you personally of robbing a store. You didn't make the accusation, another did. Therefore, the burden of proof falls to the accuser, not the accused.

And let's be honest; the views of God as extra-terrestrial or supernatural are both unfalsifiable...his existence, as it stands now, is unfalsifiable. Since it falls to a matter of faith alone, the debate is rather moot.

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Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 04:23:10 pm

It's not about whether "God" could be an alien. The point is, there really is no way to differentiate between "God" as all-knowing divine Being as defined by Religion and "God" as a super advanced technological one.

Only Me

12/7/2013 05:49:35 pm

Ah, okay.

Well, just from Biblical accounts alone, I can point to three distinct situations that I think separate the supernatural from advanced technology.

The burning bush--God takes the form of a bush that is engulfed by flame, yet the bush itself is not consumed. However, God warned Moses not to approach closer...for fear that Moses would place himself in danger, due to his curiosity?

Bringing Lazarus back from the dead--Jesus, as God in the flesh, raises Lazarus back to life, after he had been dead and entombed for four days. Lazarus walked out of his tomb after being beckoned by Jesus, alive and whole.

The Great Flood--God floods the earth with 40 days and nights of continuous rain. After that duration, the water recedes, leaving behind dry land for Noah and his family.

To my knowledge, these are occurrences that even the talking heads on AA have been unable to attribute to nothing more than misinterpretations of alien involvement.

Please don't think I'm trying to proselytize. I'm just trying to address your view about there being no difference between the divine and advanced technology.

Ronald Stepp

12/7/2013 06:43:20 pm

My view isn't that there IS no difference, it is that you cannot prove a difference. No matter how divine the display of "godly" power, you cannot show a difference between it and technology.

Examples:
Making the sun stop in the sky.
Temporal Field around the Sun.

Raising people from the dead.
Nanotechnology rebuilding cells.

Parting the Red Sea
Tractor Beam and Displacement Field.

No matter how divine the miracle it can be explained by sufficiently advanced technology. A couple thousand years ago it would have been taken as a matter of course that it was "Godly" powers because nobody back then would have the education and science to think otherwise.

Only Me

12/7/2013 07:30:19 pm

I don't think the temporal field would work on the sun, since the earth would continue to orbit. Remember, the sun appears to travel across the sky from our POV. The field would only "freeze" the nuclear activity within the sun. If one had the ability to stop the earth's orbit, then all life would perish, as there would be no gravity to prevent the atmosphere and all life forms from flying into space. I don't think even an advanced extra-terrestrial race has the means to generate enough power to counter a celestial body's natural movement.

Nanotechnology could rebuild cells, but dead is dead. In the case of Lazarus, what could bring the spark of life after four days? Even if it was possible, we're talking no memories, no sense of self, etc. Sure, he'd be alive, but not the Lazarus he was before death.

The last one is conceivable. If I saw something like that, I'd probably throw my arms into air, like Moses, too!

It's an inductive argument, If you want absolute proof of the Bible (and of course we would have that lol) try presuppositional apologetics). 1. Yeshua died 2. 1st century burial cloth with crucified man that matches the Biblical accounts and information outside those of Yeshua and first century Jewish life, crucified Jewish man with very strange image formation, various scientists attribute to possibly light (coronal discharge or 50,000,000 volts) coming out of every pore of His body 3. Empty Tomb 4. Post Mortem Appearances to both Individuals and Groups of people, both hostile and friendly (both then and to this day). Has inside and outside marks of authenticity, like the arguments from embarrassment ( a woman is the first witness, back then they weren't competent witnesses, the cowardliness of the disciples, etc). You can still get the Resurrection without points 2 and 3 but they are very interesting. The level of skepticism to ignore points 1 and 4 involves disregarding all history using historians methods, and basically believing what you want to believe.

The notion that Pagan and Islam are not the same thing is base don a very modern definition of Pagan, mostly defined by those neo-pagans who call themselves that with Pride.

Original it was just a translation of Hebrew words that mean foreign or alien. But when used in a specially spiritual sense. To a Jew any non Jew is Pagan and to a Christina any non Judeo-Christian is. It does not requires Polytheism or occult practices.

Still is Wolfram meant practicing Magick by Pagan, there are Muslims who do that regardless of their holy texts laws against it just as there are Jews and Christians who do.

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Alex

3/13/2015 10:51:36 am

THE STONE OF DESTINY - OK first I believe in almost everything and anything some might say well sir you are a idiot that being said I don't feel the need to write a long list of mysterious relics, devine power etc that i find interesting and I've done no research about this stone other then the 5 min i watch on the tv but felt compelled to say this if the stone had the ability to choose who was worthy to rule OK now obviously if you were granted to rule then had to be Noteworthy, some importan reason not just to to wear a crown and tell people what to do . so did any of them do anything of significance to explain why there were chosen because if non of them did jack squat then there's your answer to The Stone Of Destiny disproven by some one sitting on the toilet lol

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